ABSTRACT
The steel-timber applications concern the connections and the structural elements. As wood is combustible, fire is a key point for structural analysis. Due to geometrical configurations, orthotropic and brittle failure of material, the behaviour of timber-steel joints and elements are difficult to characterize, even in normal situation. In fire conditions, wood degradation and steel heating have to be considered. Thus, the resultant complex behaviour cannot be evaluated on exclusively experimental base. Thus, a numerical approach is developed for the modelling of the thermo-mechanical behaviour of common joints. It is based on two different 3D models: one for the thermal analysis and the other for the mechanical behaviour. For the mechanical model, discontinuities related to the presence of various components (wood and steel) are taken into account by considering contact elements in the interfaces. The model is validated on the basis of steel-to-timber joints loaded in tension parallel to grain and bending.
